Blood Like Chocolate
by noelswonderland
Summary: "You're just a pretty playboy!" Somehow she would come to regret saying those words to him. Hanabusa Aidou x OC, gift-fic for Reira-chan.


**Author's Note:** Uncreative title is uncreative, but this is a one-shot written for Reira-chan whose reviews I enjoy and support I appreciate. Hope you like this okay! Aidou is my favorite character from VK so I knew this was going to be a blast to write, but I _am_ really rusty on VK since I started reading it like 2 years ago and have been particularly slow keeping up with chapters. Hopefully characters stay in character for the most part. Enjoy!

**One-shot**

The boxes with intricate wrappings, grandiose decorations and sparkling ribbons are piled so high that he almost can't see over them. Out of the corner of his eye, he can barely make out his cousin's fiery red hair. He follows the sound of the footsteps in front of him as a guide so that he doesn't run into something or topple over.

"You shouldn't have accepted all of those. You can't eat them all." Luka is obviously in a sour mood, judging from the embittered tone of her voice, and he can imagine it is in large part due to Valentine's Day.

While it is a day that the girls of the Night Class seem to be repulsed by, he is actually quite gleeful at its arrival. All of those wonderful vessels full of delicious blood that would jump in his arms at the ready... if not for the fact that Kaname would have his head for touching a fang to their skin.

"It is a little excessive," Akatsuki agrees dully from beside him, still walking at a leisurely pace so that Hanabusa can keep up.

"Chocolate is-"

But he doesn't even have the opportunity to finish his sentence, since he hears the distinct sound of footsteps behind him. It echoes through the air loudly and his ears twitch from the noise – shoes slapping against the pavement. For a moment he pauses alongside the two others – Ruka and Akatsuki – and the three of them all turn toward the noise. (Not that Hanabusa can see anything over his tower of gifts.)

"Idol!" a girl's voice chirps.

It isn't a voice he distinctly recognizes, and while it is true that he doesn't pay particularly close attention to the characteristics of his fangirls because there are many and he simply doesn't care enough to do so, he is pretty sure that this voice is not among those he has heard calling out his name before. Of course, new fangirls are a natural occurrence; there are some among the Day Class that have taken a while to convert over to becoming avid fans. Still, he wonders, how this one managed to escape the watchful eyes of the prefects.

These thoughts drift in his head but are burst like a bubble when he hears an audible screech as the girl stops just in front of him. Since he can't see her, he merely answers in his usual jubilant manner, "Come to give me more chocolate~?"

"No," she scoffs incredulously, much to his surprise. "Or, well, that's what I'd like to say. It's from my friend. All of your stupid fangirls were so busy pushing and shoving that she didn't even get an opportunity to get to the front and hand this over."

Suddenly he feels something lumped onto the top of the precarious stack of gifts he already has and it tilts and wanes under the newfound weight. While Hanabusa struggles to balance it, he scarcely has an opportunity to respond.

"Man, now I feel like I wasted my time. She spent hours making that chocolate for you and you accept everyone's like it's nothing. Just because you're a part of the Night Class doesn't mean you're special. If you don't like a girl then don't accept them all, you're just giving them false hopes!" The attack seems to come out of nowhere and yet the way she cuts him down so precisely, Hanabusa finds himself struggling to come up with a clever retort. Perhaps he'd lunge at her just to give her a scare, but he can't abandon his chocolates! "Whatever, you're just a pretty playboy..."

That one stings too, but as though she hasn't said enough, the girl adds one last jab.

"Sorry, Kain-sama, Souen-sama, I respect the both of you a lot more. Excuse me, though, I had best leave before the prefects notice." Then he hears the sound of her footsteps, loud at first until they slowly dissipate completely as she runs off into the distance.

Hanabusa is left behind almost utterly dumbfounded.

—

"Reira-chan, did you manage to deliver it?" She is blushing again, likely embarrassed at the thought of Aidou – her "idol" – opening the homemade chocolate she spent several hours on, batch after batch until finally it was perfect. "I hope it wasn't a burden to him... He will eat it, right?"

Preoccupied with slipping off her school uniform, the girl named Reira keeps her back turned to her curious friend. "You should forget about people like him. It just isn't practical to even waste your time with people from the Night Class. They aren't interested in people like us."

"But I thought you liked Ichijou-sama?"

Unraveling the long, mid-shoulder length braid that she has her dusty black hair constrained into, Reira trails over to the nightstand beside her bed. She sits down gently upon the mattress which sinks under her weight. For a moment she hesitates before grabbing the hairbrush sitting beside the base of her flickering lamp. "It looks like we're going to need a new light bulb soon..."

While Reira draws the brush through her hair, her back is still turned toward her friend. "You are avoiding the subject, you know... Did something happen? You used to be right up beside me going to see the Night Class all the time."

Once she has smoothed her hair out, which was been riddled with various tangles and knots, Reira places the hairbrush back atop the table beside her bed. "It's not that anything happened," she explains vaguely as she crawls beneath the comforter. Her arms are still shivering a bit from being exposed to the cold night's air. It took her awhile to sneak back into the dormitory unnoticed by the prefects. She sinks into her pillow and tiredly manages to roll over onto her side in order to face her best friend. "You know, Kotone-chan, guys like that will never look at us, not honestly."

"We can hope, though."

_A vain hope,_ Reira thinks bitterly. She has been a dedicated fan of Takuma Ichijou since she came to Cross Academy, and while he has never been anything but kind to her, she gets the distinct feeling that there is a gap between them. All of the boys in the Night Class feel far off, unreachable. It probably doesn't help that they are so closely regulated by the prefects.

"Anyways, we should get to bed," Reira tells Kotone promptly as she laggardly turns over again and outstretches her hand to reach for the small knob on the lamp. A quiet clicking sound echoes through the room and suddenly it floods with darkness. Only the pale light of the moon, trickling in from the half-open window, is visible.

The two girls drift off rather quickly, and at least for Kotone it is a dreamless sleep that leaves her feeling well rested by morning when the alarm sounds and the girls have to scramble to throw her uniforms back on. As Reira traipses to class with Kotone, she has noticeable dark circles under her eyes from exhaustion. Even her back is slumped. Everything seems blurry in her eyes. Apparently, unlike her best friend, she did _not_ get very good sleep.

When they finally make it to the classroom, Reira hunches over her desk with her head firmly planted on top of her text book. (Coincidentally she isn't the only one, which the teacher makes note of when he catches her dozing.) Her name is written down for detention along with the two prefects, Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryuu.

"Sorry, Reira-chan, this is all because you offered to take my gift to Idol-sama..." Those green eyes of Kotone's look at Reira apologetically as she bows her head. Written into every feature of her face is both guilt and regret.

The black-haired girl merely breathes a muffled sigh into her hand as she tiredly peers up at the podium where the teacher is standing, droning on endlessly as he lectures about today's material. "Quit blaming yourself," Reira mumbles against the palm of her hand, "Blame your beloved 'Idol-sama' instead." Although she knows better than to hope that Kotone would ever have any sort of ill feelings toward the blonde-haired 'prince'. Thinking such would be nothing short of naive.

"Should I wait for you after class? It's almost over, and you won't be in detention too long. I can wait out in the hall while..."

Peering down at the empty page of her notebook, where she is supposed to be taking notes, Reira sighs again. Today is not her day; she simply can't focus. Perhaps it was a mistake to offer to Kotone that she would deliver the valentine's gift personally, but she also knows better than anyone how painful unrequited love it. Granted in fact that this may be an exaggeration on her part; she doesn't know much about Takuma Ichijou and beyond liking him for a while and seeing him every night before his classes, it isn't like she has had any other interactions with him.

Nonetheless, the love the Day Class girls have for the Night Class boys has always and will always be one-sided. She knows this for a fact. It just seems to be the way the world works, and no one can change the endless routine of Cross Academy.

"You don't have to wait for me," she says all of a sudden, despite not having heard half of what Kotone had been rambling on about. "That's the time you normally spend getting ready to go wait in front of the Night Class dorm, right? So it's okay." And though Reira tries not to sound bitter about the fact that her best friend is still obsessed over Hanabusa Aidou, judging from the slightly affronted look on Kotone's face, it doesn't work.

"Alright," is the only word Kotone says in response as she scoots out of her desk and clambers down the stairs to the front of the room with the rest of the crowd of people that are leaving. Left behind are only three people; Yuki, Zero, and Reira herself.

Detention isn't particular strenuous despite the work that the teacher ends up making them do. It seems to take more time than Zero and Yuki are willing to spend, though. Well actually, Yuki is the only one who seems particularly antsy, regarding the clock almost constantly as her holds her pencil to her paper and hastily scribbles the answers to the workout sheet the teacher handed out. Zero remains more calm and laid-back, like the icy person everyone seems to see him as. He doesn't seem particularly concerned that, if they loiter much longer, they will be late for their prefect duties.

While Reira keeps a fair distance between herself and those two, she can't help but wonder why they seem so intently focused on their duties. Silly, she thinks, because like the other girls who are infatuated with the Night Class, Yuki herself seems to be enamored with Kaname Kuran.

_**Slam!**_

"Keep working!"

Ah, crap – now the teacher is yelling at her because she was spacing out again. The moment he turns his back she sneers at him but promptly does as she is instructed. Once the worksheet is finished – and sadly, she is the last one to be finished – she drops it off at the front desk before laggardly making her way out of the classroom.

The corridors of the school are getting fairly dark now as the sun ducks behind the horizon. Lighting is sparse and yet she easily makes her way back to the dormitory where the girls who visited the Night Class dorm are just barely coming back from their own activity. They all seem to be in a tizzy, she notices, because they are murmuring amongst themselves and chatting animatedly.

A particular crowd seems to have gathered about Kotone, who seems flustered; her cheeks are tomato red and she is walking so rigidly with a dazed look on her face that she nearly trips over the stairs as though she doesn't seem them. Reira follows in line after her and tries to catch up to get some kind of clue as to what is going on, but alas she is pushed and shoved by the other girls who _already_ know.

Rather than partake in the excited jabber the fangirls are now occupying themselves with in the commons, she hurries up to her room. Even though the curiosity is eating away at her, Reira knows that she'll find out soon enough what is going on. (Probably something simple, she thinks, like one of the boys winked at them or something.) A rather bittersweet memory for her as she remembers the times when she would get flustered by such simple reactions from the boys.

"So pretty," she says to herself as she thinks about them. Yes, indeed, each one looks like they have come directly from a painting or a magazine. It is every girl's dream to have a guy like that, she supposes. Reira shunts such nonsense from her mind and slowly starts to peel off her uniform before she is startled by the sudden sound of the door swinging open.

"Reira-chan!"

Her entire body tenses as she jerks around to face the owner of the voice, relieved to see that it is just Kotone peeking in. "You scared me," she sighs.

There is a lofty grin on Kotone's face as she slinks in, shutting the door softly behind her. "Something unbelievable happened tonight, I wish you could have been there. Remember how you said that people like Idol-sama aren't interested in people like us?" Sudden she produces a folded white piece of paper from behind her back. She holds it out toward Reira. "Look, look," she urges with a blithe smile on her face.

The folded paper merely earns a quirked brow from Reira. Her brown eyes inspect it with great curiosity as she tentatively takes it from her best friend's grasp. "What is this?" Reira asks as she unfolds it. The scribbled writing inside is surprisingly neat and easy to read.

_Hello, Kotone-chan~_

_ Thanks for the chocolate. Meet me at midnight, east entrance. Watch out for the prefects._

_ -Idol~_

The way he writes and the small peace sign at the bottom are so juvenile and cutesy that it takes everything Reira has to keep from barfing. More than that, she wants to caution her friend, remind her that this could just be a hoax – a way to embarrass her and dash her dreams. But Reira can't bring herself to crush the hopeful expression Kotone is giving her. Instead she forces a smile on her face and says, "Isn't that great? You're the only girl whose crush has been realized. You better feel lucky!"

"I do, I do!" she responds back in a shrill voice as she grabs the note back and holds it up to the light, spinning in a circle. Obviously the surreality of it all has yet to fade. Kotone still can't believe that Hanabusa Aidou has requested a personal meeting with her.

Meanwhile, nothing short of cynical, Reira also can't bring herself to believe this. "He handed it to you directly, right?" She has to make sure – be sure that one of the girls isn't playing an elaborate prank on her best friend.

"It was definitely him," Kotone assures as she walks over to her bed and falls back against it, holding the note close to her chest.

_Maybe,_ Reira thinks, _he listened to what I said and he really is going to choose Kotone._ That seems far too unlikely and even she can't bring herself to be optimistic enough to believe that. It must be a scheme – it has to be... Then, Reira pauses upon the crushing accusation her own conscience lodges against her, _"Maybe you're just jealous because Ichijou never recognized you."_ She swallows those bitter words.

"Do you want to come with me and the other girls?" Kotone asks suddenly as she jolts upright.

"Go with you?"

She gives a sharp nod. "Yeah, they insisted on going along to help keep the prefects away. You know, as a distraction so that Idol-sama and I don't get interrupted."

Not that she is interested in participating due to the probability of being caught and punished, but this plan does give her an excuse to go and spy on the two of them. If anything goes awry, then she'll also have the perfect opportunity to protect her friend if she is close. And although it probably isn't the smartest course of action, it is the one that Reira inevitably decides she is willing to take.

"Sure, I'll go. I'm really excited for you." Which is mostly a lie and she feels a little guilty about it.

"Then we'll go just before midnight."

—

There could never be a worse night to be lurking about the school grounds. Especially since they are crawling through the bushes and the wind is absolutely still. It seems to accentuate the sound of their footsteps; cracking twigs and rustling leaves. Like a marching band it serves to announce their arrival – the last thing they want the prefects to be aware of.

"Agh, it's so cold out tonight," one of the girls in front of Reira complains in a hushed whisper.

She rolls her eyes as they clamor through the darkness, heading for the farthest entrance from the Day Class girl's dormitory. Reira can't help but silently admonish Aidou for picking that place as a meeting spot, of all the places he could choose. Nonetheless, they are starting to get a little closer to it.

Then suddenly their "stealthy" excursion is blown when one of the other girls sneezes. It's a loud sound that seems to echo through the night. "Crap, Hitomi!" one of the other girls gasps out, panicking, "I hope they didn't hear that. That wasn't too loud was it? Do you hear them coming?"

_Well,_ Reira thinks sardonically, _if her sneeze isn't enough to get their attention then you yelling at her certainly should be._

Tragically, and she admonishes herself for it, Reira is right; it seems one of the prefects is nearby and they _did_ hear it. A voice bellows from above, "Hey, you there! I want your names and class numbers!" At the very least they can breathe a sigh of relief that it is only Yuki and she does not appear to be accompanied by that unsettling boy prefect that seems glued to her like some kind of unrelenting adhesive, but her appearance still spells trouble. Everyone starts scrambling in a panic.

"Run!" a few of the girls scream collectively as they clamor to dive through the trees and bushes to escape. In the process someone bumps right up against Reira and sends her tumbling to the ground. Along the way, she thinks that she has scraped her knee because there is a stinging pain in it as she struggles back up to her feet. She can feel her heart nearly pounding out of her chest, but she at least manages to stumble behind the trunk of a tree. Reira knows that she can't run as fast as the other girls and she is the one most certain to be caught. Perspiration is trickling down her face as she presses her body against the tree and waits. Her eyes close as she holds her breath in anticipation.

"I know you're hiding there, come out!"

At those words, Reira's entire body freezes. She swallows hard – she has been found out that quickly? This is the first time she has ever gotten into trouble and she didn't even truly want to come in the first place. Once again she is the one suffering the consequences for going out of her way to be a good friend. At least, she hopes, that Kotone will be able to escape and perhaps meet her "prince charming."

"I said come out!"

Reira's legs are trembling and in her head a voice keeps telling her not to move, that maybe if she doesn't come out then Yuki won't find her.

"Then I'll come over there instead."

Her eyelids clench shut as she takes a quick inhale. Yuki definitely knows where she is already so she might as well get it over with and reveal herself. Especially since her knee is starting to hurt and she is pretty sure the warmth trickling down her shin is blood. But just as she is about to peek out from the tree, something stops her... No, _someone_ stops her.

There is a hand covering her lips and as she struggles to see who it is that has her pinned to the tree, Reira's eyes fall upon a familiar face. Not familiar because she actually knows this person personally, but because of how many _times _she has seen them. Hair a golden blonde that resembles the rays of the sun and eyes such a vibrant turquoise that they captivate her – she can't look away even if she wants to.

"I'm sorry, okay? I just... wanted to... get a picture of Wild-sama!" It's one of the other girls – one that Reira isn't well-acquainted with – and at least she is a good enough friend to come up with an excuse to cover for Kotone.

Not that it particularly matters, Reira thinks, because the person that Kotone is supposed to meet is the one holding her against the tree. She isn't sure if she is happy that Yuki didn't find her or not. For some reason there is a feeling of dread welling up inside her chest as she stares at the lopsided, eerie smile on Hanabusa Aidou's face.

"Shh," he tells Reira, "You don't want her to find us." The warmth of his breath crawls across her cheek as he leans in toward her. His scent floods her nose and it smells strange – like pine, she supposes? Not that it matters whatever cologne he might wear; she can see out of the corner of her eyes that his own eyes seem to be gleaming red.

Reira blinks furiously. Surely she is imagining it? But even though she might like to ask, or to at the very least shout out to Yuki and admit her own guilt to breaking school rules, she feels frozen stiff. All of her limbs refuse to move and the only thing her lips can do is tremble.

A little over ten feet away she can hear the leaves rustling as Yuki escorts the girl she found back toward the dormitory while chiding her for breaking regulation and citing the punishments for doing do. Every echo of a footstep she hears that carries them further away, the more Reira feels her heart sink. There is a distinct feeling she has right now, like a voice inside of her head screaming at her that something isn't right.

"Not going to scream, are you?" The way he speaks so suavely is unlike the usual childish manner in which Reira is accustomed to him using.

Nevertheless, she gives him a slight nod and he slowly peels his hand away from her mouth. "Did you know?" he asks her, making a brief motion to her leg, "You're bleeding." And strangely, his eyes seem fixated on the stream of dried blood running down her leg. The moment he reaches his hand down toward her shin, to touch it perhaps, she smacks him away.

"I don't need your concern," Reira tells him haughtily, having regained her nerve. (Although she is still whispering despite Yuki and that other girl being long gone by now.) "You should be hurrying to the meeting place. I'm sure Kotone-chan is still headed there now."

"Ah, that's right," he drawls with a look of realization. "That girl's name was Kotone..."

The black-haired girl furrows her brows at the glazed look on his face. She definitely knows for sure now that she isn't imagining it; those eyes of his are gleaming red, the same color as the blood from her wound. She gulps but manages to keep composed. "Exactly, so get going. I can get back to the dorm fine on my own." Her own voice betrays her as it carries a tremor in it when she speaks.

His eyes flick up toward her face as he tilts his head. "What is your name then?" A strange smile creeps up onto his lips. "Your voice sounds familiar, you're the one that called me a playboy, aren't you?"

Perspiration is trickling down her forehead, hidden beneath a curtain of ebony-shaded bangs. Unfortunately while he may not be able to see her sweating under the intensity of his gaze, Aidou probably does notice it when she swallows hard. "A-ah, that? Well, I'll change my opinion of you if you treat Kotone right."

"I'm not interested in that human," he says in a distant voice, poking his tongue out to lick his lips.

"H-human?" she stutters out questioningly. "You're human too so-"

"Am I?" Aidou challenges with slanted eyes, and there is something noticeably inhuman about him when he speaks – his _fangs_.

Then suddenly Reira's eyes widen in realization and for a moment she fumbles with her own thoughts. Surely, she believes, it can't be possible that he would be something like... a vampire? No – no, she must be dreaming. "You are human," she counters boldly as she reaches with her trembling fingers over to her forearm and pinches her skin. Reira winces as she feels the pain from it. Definitely not dreaming.

"Let's test that." He opens his mouth, fangs shining beneath the dim light of the moon that streaks down through the tree tops, and closes in on her neck. Is he going to bite her? Suck all of her blood?

Reira blanches and snaps her eyes shut.

"...-chan? Reira-chan?"

Somehow she is saved by the sound of her friend's panicked voice, the distant ruckus of footsteps resounding throughout the night. Aidou doesn't seem quite as relieved, a rather bitter look on his face as he leans away from her. "Interrupted," he breathes out in a sigh. His hands fall back to his sides as he takes several steps back. "Time for me to leave."

She catches his sleeve, against her better judgment, to stop him. "Wait, you have to talk to Kotone-chan! You called her out here, didn't you?"

"Only to lure you out," he says honestly. Then suddenly Aidou smiles at her wryly. "Was your friend excited?"

It's vexing that he says it like he doesn't care at all about Kotone's feelings, but against her will, Reira feels her heart pounding quickly. She doesn't know this time if it's out of fear or something different altogether. It has her so preoccupied she can't respond.

"Tomorrow night, with the rest of the fangirls, I'll see you when I wake up... Reira'-chan.'" And as though he had never been there to begin with, the blonde-haired man melts into the darkness like a specter.

The moment he is gone, she sees Kotone pop around the corner of the tree, green eyes peering through the night. "Ah!" she gasps out in relief. "I wondered if you might still be in this area or if you had returned to the dorms. Did something happen?"

"Just my knee," Reira lies. "Did you meet your Idol?" And although she asks the question, she already knows the answer.

"No, I think one of the other girls ratted me out anyways... Zero was standing at the east entrance when I got there and even though I waited for a bit, he didn't leave..."

Kotone seems thoroughly depressed about it, and while Reira would like to take the time to comfort her best friend, she is too busy wondering how her life is going to change now... Now that she knows something that she probably shouldn't. "Let's go back to the dorms," she tells Kotone with a smile despite her worrisome thoughts.

The next evening when the fangirls are gathering around the entrance to the Night Class dormitory, Reira finds herself right along beside her best friend, clustered with a group of others waiting to greet their "dream guys." She can't help but roll her eyes at the thought and yet she still finds herself standing there, waiting.

Goosebumps pop up the length of her arms and the back of her neck as she stands there, thinking about whether or not they are truly vampires and how anyone could think of having them in a co-education school with humans. Perhaps her own skepticism continues to persuade her that the night before was just her imagination. She knows better, though.

Especially since, when all of the guys are pouring through the now-open doors, she spots Aidou. He is smiling and almost skipping along blithely like a child, happy as can be. But he seems to scan the crowd for a moment before spotting her. That almost murderous glimmer that had been in his eyes the night before appears briefly, although she seems to be the only one to notice. And while he is looking at her, he winks.

The girls around her of course seem to think it was at them, but she knows better – knows that this could be the beginning of something very toxic.


End file.
